Today our chicken coop is getting a major upgrade. We're going to be installing an automatic door that goes right here. If you haven't seen the complete tour of our chicken coop or how we build it, I will link to the video down in the description below. So you can check out why we designed it this way and how we built it. But let me show you how the door works right now. Right now there's a door that slides up and down right here, it's pulled by this string that comes all the way over here, and then down to here. So you lift this up, which lowers the door, say like this. The problem is, it doesn't go down all the way. Because there is stuff built up in the corners right there of that track. Another problem is, we find personally that it's easier to open it than it is to close it at night, you're up in the morning and you have your coffee go out, you open up the chickens, but at night, you know you're already relaxed, you're inside and you get your shoes off and you just don't feel like going back out and closing the door so that the chickens are safe throughout the night. We're gonna fix that today. All right, so let's see what we got here. This is a self locking the world's first self locking automatic chicken door. So we've got let's see, here's the door right here. And you can see when you when this gets pulled up. These locks go in like that. Right. So this is the chicken guard door. It's really thick. It's like a dual pane or dual dual thickness and fairly heavy. Alright, the door. And let's see,

Coco

we've got that some batteries. Checking guard branded batteries. Anyway, batteries and screws. Probably need those.

Got the guides for the door, right here? For guards. Hmm, I bet these go together. Probably not that one. This one or there are the marked ambi There we go. Look at that,

huh?

How's it work? Gotta go. This must be for the other side. Try this one. There we go. Look at that. All right. So there's the guide for the door. Go ahead and just pop this one together as well. Yeah, I like that.

Sweet, huh.

So here's what the lock goes through it looks like and the track that slides up and down on. And then what else we got in here. Let's see. So far, it's three main parts.

And then we've got

our chickenguard computer kind of books. Alright, so our chickenguard computer here. Check it out. We got the stream, pulls up the door right there. And this is actually the extreme version. And inside, we've got that we've got the motor. So you get your little DC motor right here, where you put your batteries in here. And then this looks like a gear reduction. Like a little transmission on it right here. You got some computer stuff on the back here battery hook wrapper. This screws and a gasket for around the door. Sweet. When we get ready to turn it on and set it up. I'll show you how it works. I still don't know yet how it works, but we'll figure it out together. Okay, this is the door that we want to secure here. I get that. man that's gonna be good. Like that. Okay, so that'll slide up and slide down. lock them in there. Okay, that's cool. So let's see here. This one goes on this side. This one's gonna go on this side. Like that. I'm just gonna slide up and down. Like that. Yeah. Okay, so we're gonna have to move this chicken wire over some because it kind of gets in the way of the where those mounts need to go.

The way

I'm not I'm, I mean, I looked at the directions, but I'm not like following them. 100% so if I can figure it out without reading the directions 100%

anybody could do this.

All right, it's not like rocket science. So don't be intimidated by a little DIY project. fixing up your chicken coop making it more secure. Not uh, not that difficult. But what's really cool about it is

it's

like you could come out and manually shut your chicken coop up every night, right? Because typically, you're going to be attacked by a predator like raccoons. Maybe, I don't know what kind of predators you have in your area, but here it will probably be raccoons at night. Well, at night is when we always forget to close up the chicken coop, right. So also, ours doesn't shut all the way. Because it gets this buildup in here and over in this corner right here, so it doesn't shut all the way without you coming out and like scraping that out, which is a pain. The other thing is, it doesn't lock. This one is going to automatically lock. Okay, check it again, here. Perfect. And I'm only gonna put two screws in for right now. Cuz I need to adjust it somehow. Then I can do it. I don't have to take out all the screws to go

like that.

And

it looks like I'm gonna have to move it that way a little bit. This screw right here is just gonna be too close to the door opening down.

Let's see. Yep.

We're gonna have to move this guy over. The directions do specifically say not to use a power tool. But we're gonna use one anyway. And we'll just be very careful, right? Okay. This is the 21st century. Right, I'll go ahead and put the other ones in. And did I mentioned guys, this is not made in China. This is actually made in Britain.

That's cool.

There we go. Oh, that's nice. All right, so just slides up and down. Nice and easy. And locked, as you can get in there. Unless it pulls on the string.

So that's cool.

We're gonna mount the control box up pretty high. That way, no water can get on him. I mean, it's water sealed, there's a seal that we're going to put in there a gasket, but still, to keep it up here more protected, I think will be better. And if we notice right here, this little guy lines up right on this line. So we'll just go ahead and put the string right there. And we're gonna put it up almost as high as we can.

This is where you could break it. I mean, like if you really tightened it down. You could crack it right here probably. So you want to be careful. Okay, you just finish it up with a screwdriver.

Yeah, good.

All right, we got a string tight on here. Now. opens it up. Perfect. Great. nice and secure. We got to put one screw in here. We mess.

Safe, it works.

Oh yeah.

Here's our little battery holder here. And it looks like right when you open that thing up there. It looks like you could put and hook up a nine volt battery to it right with like these kind of plugs right here. But the direction specifically say don't do that you will destroy your unit. Something like that. Anyway, we'll break it. So don't do it. Got our batteries in here. Let's go put it in. Alright, so here's our battery box. thing.

And

let's see, this is the front cover. So it's actually going to clip onto here. So should it go this way think, put it in there. And let's see. Black on top right on the bottom. Plug the

motor into there.

Plug this guy

in, like this guy on the here. All right? Oh, look at that. It's lit up.

Sweet. All right,

we got that. What we shouldn't done that yet.

Let's go ahead and unplug that we're gonna put the gasket on there. First, we got the battery and we figured out how we hook it up. But we got to put this gasket on here first. So it just kind of goes in this little track right here and it goes in super simple. So far anyway, just kind of push it and turn it and it just slips right in there. Oh, it's long, huh? That's cool. extra long. Like when you look here, right, it can't really go any further it stops there and it stops there. So I guess we got to cut gaskets all the way in all the way around, right to where it stops here and right to where it stops here. So the motor hooks up right here. Black on top, right on the bottom. plug that in. Plug the batteries in. Bam. All right. Now we just put the screws in sealer up.

So we got it all on there. Beautiful. Chicken guard.com Alright, so it says here initial setup, press the menu button setup wizard. Press the left button or right button that tells you exactly what to do navigate through the menu. Alright. All right 1235 check saved continue. Yes. Door calibration set to a four. Press up or down to move the door. Okay, to the fully open position press the Menu when fully opened.

Press media

Now press the down button till it's fully closed. I think it's gonna test it coming on up.

unlock this off and everything

okay, so calibration complete. will continue. Door settings timer check. Open 7am check saved continue. Yes. Close settings. sensor

Nope.

timer. Lux set a new timer clothes setting Hmm Well, we'll go to nine o'clock right now. Because summertime it doesn't get dark till after nine o'clock All right. Perfect. It's been working flawlessly now for over a week we put it up high enough here so it doesn't get wet from the rain or anything like that. Opens closes and check it out man. The ticket love it. You guys like that door? Yes, you do the chickens love the door. Why? Because they're safe at night, guys, if you're concerned about predators getting into your coop at night, man because when this thing comes down, it locks it's solid, it's metal man. There's nothing that's gonna get in there and attack our chickens. And if you got one nothing will get in there and attack your chickens either. I will put a link to this down in the description of the video. Go ahead check it out, read the reviews and see if it's something that you might want to add to your chicken coop as well. If you'd like to see what else is going on here on our homestead, there is a video right over here you can go ahead and check out. Otherwise I hope you have a really great day. Keep smiling and I will see you over in that video in just a second.